


welcome (to a forgotten) home

by grayswebb



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Amnesia, Established Relationship, Getting Together, Light Angst, M/M, Pining, Set a few years post current canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:02:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28008126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grayswebb/pseuds/grayswebb
Summary: Buck gets hurt and forgets something important.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley & Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV), Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV), Maddie Buckley/Howie "Chimney" Han
Comments: 16
Kudos: 133





	1. Buck Begins Again

The light was blinding. 

The moment Buck opened his eyes, the glare of the fluorescents forced them closed again. He wanted to move—to put his hand between his eyes and those awful lights—but his body felt numb and heavy. He urged his arms to reach out, but even the slightest movement seem to tear at his muscles. In fact, _everything_ hurt. 

Feeling came to him like a freight train. A wicked pain laced his arms and his legs ached with stiffness. His head, however, was the worst; it pounded to the beat of his heart and felt heavier than his neck could support. 

Buck groaned and pinched his eyes together, turning his face into the waiting coolness of a pillow. He reached for sleep, still groggy enough to fall back into that darkness, but the hissing scrape of a chair and muffled yell pulled Buck farther out of unconsciousness.

The feeling of another hand grasping his own startled Buck’s eyes open once again. He blinked against the too-white light, a dull ache settling behind his eyes. For a moment, he absently wondered if he was dead and heaven was simply a lot more painful than Bobby’s church made it out to be—though Buck didn’t feel much like exploring any other conclusion to that scenario. 

Finally, however, he heard the all-too-familiar rhythmic beeping of heart rate and oxygen monitors. He supposes one can never really get used to waking up like this, no matter how many times it may have happened before. 

“Hospital?” he questioned in a voice so dry and raspy he didn’t recognize it as his own. The hand on his squeezed, firm and solid, and Buck turned to see its owner. His neck protested the motion with a throbbing stab. 

“Yeah, Buck, you’re in the hospital.”

The cracked voice belonged to a man Buck was sure he’d never seen before. He couldn’t place the smooth edge of the ragged voice or the rich brown eyes set deep in tired, purple-tinged sockets. The man’s disheveled black hair fell over his forehead while dark stubble almost completely overshadowed his light brown cheeks. Buck’s eyes caught on every corner and angle of the man before him, but he couldn’t find any of him in his memory. 

He stared and stared, aching eyes going back and forth across the man’s face. He looked fatigued, by all accounts ragged, but yet Buck faltered as a shuttering smile melted away every tired line on the man’s face. It was disarming; so wild and untamed and directed right at him. The guy looked at him with an unyielding joy despite the slouched set of his broad shoulders and obviously lived-in clothes. Buck found he had to look someplace, _anyplace_ , else just to escape the heat of it.

His gaze flitted across the corners of the room, acting at taking a mental stock of his surroundings. The room was small and oppressively white, with only two plastic chairs on the right side of his raised bed. The chair beside the stranger remained empty. 

The man’s eyes—a brown so mesmerizing Buck was sure he must get complimented on them daily—found Buck’s own with a fond, knowing look.

Buck tried to speak again, but the air caught in his dry throat and sent him into a small coughing fit. Each cough sent a wave of searing pain through his chest.

The other man moved without hesitation, supporting the back of Buck’s head with a steady hand as the coughs worked their way through him. The hand remained at the nape of Buck’s nape for several moments longer than he thought necessary. The man’s thumb brushed a small circle in Buck’s hairline, barely a breath of a touch, before retreating. His other hand, however, remained firm over Buck’s. 

Buck shivered. 

It was too familiar, too strange. Everything in Buck screamed that he did not know this man, his eyes, or his smile. Yet the way the man looked at him, the way the touch of his skin made Buck feverish, told a different story. 

It was just too much. 

With all the strength and tolerance he could muster, Buck tugged his hand out of the other’s secure hold. 

Reluctantly, the man released his grip. Confusion flickered across his face and settled into tight lines of tension between his brows. 

“Why-” Buck began before another cough overtook him. Without a word, the other man pulled his chair closer to Buck’s bed and pushed a plastic cup of water into his newly empty hand. That was strange too, this anticipation of his needs by another person; he didn’t know what to do with it. 

Buck tried to drink, but his arms still screamed when he lifted the cup a few inches toward his mouth. He winced, residing himself to fruitlessly hold the cup. The man smiled—though the sunlight smile from moments was gone entirely, replaced instead by an amused curve of soft lips. The man rolled his eyes and took the plastic pink cup from Buck’s fingers. Gingerly, he pressed the plastic to Buck’s lips and held the side of his head in support as Buck slowly sipped the water inside. The liquid was lukewarm and tasted like metal, but it felt like heaven on Buck’s throat. He drank until he couldn’t any longer and the man pulled away, hand and cup; this time there was no gentle caress.

“What happened?” Buck attempted again, asking in as few words as possible. The drink helped, but he still felt raw. 

The man finally looked away—mercifully—rubbing both hands across his face. Without the unending smiles and wide eyes, he looked defeated. His shoulders hung low and an accelerated five o’ clock shadow graced his stark features. When he looked at Buck again, his jaw was set and his eyes seemed glazed over. 

“A fire in an old theater downtown. It was a standard call, nothing insane or out of the ordinary, a job we’d had a thousand times before. Bobby sent us to do a sweep of the second floor and you…” He stops, resting his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands together. He drew in a small breath and looked to the ground before continuing.

“There was this little girl screaming from a blocked room. We cleared the doorway together, but you stopped me when I tried to go any further. You said the floor was unsteady, that it wouldn’t hold us both and the kid. You joked that it was my turn to watch your back.” His voice was getting deeper, catching on shallow breaths. 

The man paused so long Buck thought he might be finished speaking altogether. 

“I let you go,” was all he said at last. His voice grated against his throat like every word was an effort. 

Buck understood now. He had fallen. He couldn’t remember it or the call—or much of anything, for that matter—but the details were pretty easy to fill in. Firefighting came with a lot of intrinsic variables, but situations like those only had a few outcomes. 

Fire tears through the support of old buildings and wears the already weakened floors paper thin. Buck guessed he could count himself lucky that he only fell from the second floor.

He opened his mouth to ask if he got to the kid in time, if the other man had saved her at the very least, when the room door opened with a quiet _swish_.

A short brunette in scrubs stood in the doorway, staring at a clipboard overflowing with papers. She flipped one up and spoke without looking up.

“Mr. Diaz? I need your signature on some of this paper-” 

The words dropped from her mouth when she glanced up and made eye contact with Buck. She dropped the pen she’d been holding—in shock or hurry—as she rushed out the door far more abruptly than she had entered. 

_Diaz. Diaz. Diaz._

The name rang around in Buck’s head, trying to find purchase. There was a sick feeling in his gut. His temples throbbed. 

_Diaz._

His mind still drew up nothing at the name, a gaping hole in lieu of memories. He knew something should be there, some recognition of the man who was so clearly concerned with his well-being. 

For what felt like the hundredth time since waking up, Buck glanced at the man sitting to his right. He tried connecting that chiseled jaw to the new name he’d been given.

_Diaz. Diaz._

“Diaz,” Buck whispered, the name a question, slipping out without any forethought. The name felt familiar yet still clunky on his chapped lips. 

He resisted the urge to bite them. 

The man looked at him, steady and quizzical. His eyebrows pinched together and his eyes searched Buck’s face. His mouth dropped once, twice, in silence but no words came out. It was a waste to wonder what this man—though Buck did wonder if he should call him Diaz—would have said when a flurry of motion erupted at the door. Doctors hustled through the entrance with a small cacophony of shouts and appeals.

“How have you been feeling since waking up, Mr. Buckley?” Some doctor asked. She didn’t wait for a response before she pressed cold hands to Buck’s neck, jaw, and arms. Frigid fingers flitted frantically over every inch of his exposed skin. Absently, Buck craved the return of that calloused warmth that gripped his hand so securely before. As soon as the thought entered his head, however, Buck chased it away.

A sudden yellow light interrupted Buck’s vision and all his limbs froze in the shock of it. It was gone before Buck could register what had happened. The doctor _hmph-_ ed, tucking a penlight into her pocket and mumbling to a younger man next to her. He fervently scribbled something onto the clipboard he clutched in his arms. 

The attention gave Buck pause. This was far from his first triste in a hospital, but he couldn’t recall ever receiving the same level of doting he was given now. The man beside him—Diaz—sat stiffly the entire time the doctors fluttered about, checking Buck’s vitals and asking him the same repetitive, mundane questions.

How was his head feeling? Could he move his toes? What was his pain level?

With every answer he gave, they murmured a bit more and scribbled a few more notes. Buck noticed that none of them had spoken to Diaz since the first nurse that had come in. He hadn’t moved, but the line of his shoulders were taught and his jaw tight as he glanced at each doctor that passed him by. 

Eventually, the doctors left with small smiles that Buck hoped meant good news and fast recovery. One of the younger doctors patted his foot as he left, assuring him they’d be back soon to check on him again and answer any of his questions. Diaz quietly guffawed at that.

After each doctor had left, Buck saw a nurse guarding the door from a waiting group. She put her arms up, half-heartedly informing them that Buck can only have one more visitor at a time. The group surged forward, a man and a woman shoved their way past the nurse. The woman smiled a quick apology to the nurse before walking into the room. 

Buck’s heart caught in his throat and forced the air out of his lungs when he saw the short brunette woman standing over the end of his bed. 

“Maddie,” he choked out, surprised he could speak at all considering the pain in his throat and the sight of the sister he hadn’t seen in years. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I usually hate posting my writing anywhere but I decided who cares anymore lol cringe is dead but also I'm sorry that my writing is not what one would call classically "good"
> 
> This is my first 9-1-1 fic, so let me know if you liked this concept so I know whether or not to abandon it. I have another chapter of this already written, and I thought I might as well write this for fun after finals and during my university's winter intersession while we all wait for season 4


	2. Anyone Ever Call You Diaz?

Maddie’s eyes softened when she saw him, and Buck felt like a teenager again. He didn’t have time to question why or how his sister was in California, he just stared at Maddie like he was afraid she would disappear if he blinked.

“Maddie,” he repeated again, unsure of what else to say. No words would come to him. He tried to shake off the shock and be in the moment, happy, with his sister, but his head began to pound the harder he focused on Maddie’s face. 

“Hey, Evan,” she said, voice soft in the way it used to get when Buck would get sick as a child and she’d swoop in, taking care of him until he was well enough again for her to lovingly berate him. 

“You’re here,” was all that he could think, so Buck said it—first a whisper, then as a question.

Again Diaz gave him a puzzling look. It was a twitch of his eyebrows and the slightest tilt of his head, but Buck saw it. Even with his only sister in the room—whom he hadn’t seen since he’d left Hershey—Buck kept zoning back to this man he didn’t know at all. Everytime Diaz moved his hands or shifted in his seat, Buck registered it in his periphery. It felt habitual; Buck found it annoying. 

“Of course I’m here. You’re hurt.”

Buck didn’t want to laugh. He was long past being the bitter teenager who felt abandoned by his sister—he hadn’t felt that way in years—but he had to hold back the snide laugh that threatened to build in his chest. He hated himself for it, wanting to enjoy Maddie’s being there, so he just smiled instead. 

“If I’d have known a little bump on the head was all it took to get you to see me after all these years, I would have put myself up in the hospital a long time ago.” Buck chirped, trying to make light of the enormity of what he was feeling.

Maddie’s gaze rolled to Diaz, then to Chimney, before returning unsteadily to her brother. 

“Don’t joke about that, Evan,” she said easily, though her stance was tense when she gently shoved his thigh. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Buck saw Diaz give Chimney a small shrug and a shake of his head. 

Absently, Buck wondered why the stranger had been the one to sit studiously at his bedside when Maddie had been here, _in_ _L.A._ He still couldn’t believe it. He wanted to ask her how long she’d been in town, but that just brought to mind an onslaught of new questions that Buck had no answer to: how long had he been there, asleep; Maddie had come in with Chimney, but who else had she met; was anyone else out there, waiting for him?

“Is Abby here?” he asked, to none of them in particular, the words coming out as soon as he thought them. 

She should be there, Buck thought. There was no reason why she shouldn’t be, but the words felt sour in his mouth. His head pounded, a dry ache settingling in the base of his skull. 

Beside him, Diaz stilled. 

Maddie scoffed lightly, giving Buck an intense, searching stare. Her eyes were wide and unrelenting on him, and Buck squirmed under her gaze. The stiff sheets of the hospital bed felt like burlap against his skin. 

He looked towards Diaz but, for once, the man wasn’t looking his way: his head was turned down towards his hands which lay open on his lap. Every muscle across his shoulders and back was taught and Buck saw his fingers slowly stretch in and out of a fist. Everything about him spoke of barely contained, precise control—though Buck could barely understand how he could recognize that in another person, let alone this man he’d only just met. 

Maddie opened her mouth to speak but no sound came out. She furrowed her brows and shook her head at her brother. 

“Abby,” was the only word that came from her mouth, but it didn’t sound like a question. 

Buck thought that maybe she just hadn’t met Abby yet, but he began to grow worried as he looked between Maddie and the other man next to him. He felt like he was interrupting his own funeral; tension was suffocating the room. 

“Yeah,” Buck replied anyway. “Abigail Clark—Abby. I don’t know if you’ve met her, but she should be here. She should know.” 

His sister’s face twisted in confusion.

“She’s important,” he insisted, but when he reached for the sentiment beneath the words, there was nothing. 

The chair next to him scraped loudly—abruptly—across the floor. Diaz stood up, jerkingly, and turned towards the window. Buck watched as he dragged his hands through his hair and rubbed his face. The back of his shirt fell low across his neck and shoulders, almost hanging off his frame. Buck wondered when the man last had a decent meal. 

The movement must have stirred Maddie; she sat gently, almost unaware, on the edge of Buck’s bed. 

“You can’t…” she faltered, her words trailing off. “They said you might, but I didn’t think…”

“Maybe someone should go get one of those doctors back here,” Chimney offered, half turning toward the door. When neither Maddie nor Diaz even glanced his way, Chimney left with an apologetic smile in Buck’s direction. 

Buck sat up, ignoring the tearing pain through each of his muscles. The more he moved the more the pain in his arms dulled, but his legs and core protested in agony. He felt so sore he again wondered how long he had been asleep, stiff and unmoving—practically dead. He brushed the thought away as he tried to remain his usual, calm, happy self. 

“Mads, c’mon, you’re freaking me out here.”

A bit of Buck’s panic must have bled through in his voice because the man turned his head over his shoulder. Immediately, his eyes found Buck’s. For a long moment, he just stared, eyes roaming and searching for something Buck didn’t know how to give. 

Buck didn’t know what Diaz was seeing, but a pit opened up in his stomach when he registered disappointment in the other man’s face. It was irrational to feel that way, but an icy sick feeling crawled up his throat nevertheless. 

“What’s my name, Buck?”

The question was the same one he’d been asking himself since he woke up. This man, this Diaz or whoever he was, clearly thought he knew Buck. He expected Buck to know him too, that much was obvious. 

Maybe he was a new addition to the 118? Someone filling in from another station? It made sense, Buck rationalized: missing a few weeks worth of gaps in his memory was normal—expected, even-in the aftermath of head injuries. It would explain why Diaz had been right next to him in the fire yet why, no matter how hard he tried, the man remained a stranger. It certainly explained why Chimney didn’t seem bothered by his presence. 

But it didn’t explain why the very air between them seemed thick and heavy. 

Buck opened his mouth, unsure of what he was going to say. No matter how much he assumed about the man and his job, Buck still couldn’t remember his name. 

The man turned completely towards him. 

“And don’t say Diaz.” His voice was clipped, edged with something sharp. Anger? Buck guessed he could understand that.

“I’m sorry.”

The man took an involuntary step back and made a grunting noise, guttural and choked. He turned away again, rubbing at his face. Buck wanted to take the words back, to exchange them for better ones, but there was nothing he could say. Even if he didn’t know this man, he hated being the source of anyone’s distress. 

“Buck,” came Maddie’s quiet lilt as her hand rested gently on his leg, drawing his attention back her way. For half a second, Buck had forgotten his sister was in the room—he was caught up entirely—again—with Diaz’s every move.

“That’s Eddie,” she said, just as calmly, like she was explaining the concept of gravity to someone who’d crashed down on earth. “He’s your—”

“Best friend.” Eddie was quick to interrupt, cutting off whatever Maddie had intended to say. “I’ve been your best friend for five years.”

Buck felt like the world fell out underneath him. If he wasn’t already sitting down, he was sure he would have fallen over. The pain in his head traveled behind his eyes and beat in tandem with the blood rushing in his ears. 

_He’d lost five years_.

It didn’t make sense—couldn’t make sense. His brain refused to accept it. It was impossible.

And yet. 

And yet.

And yet.

His name was Eddie.  
It felt like nothing, less than nothing, but the word fit itself into place comfortably in Buck’s thoughts. It was one mystery solved. He could imagine saying it, laughing it, breathing it. The sound of it fit the man much better than the cold distance of ‘Diaz.’ 

‘Best friend’ explained their apparent closeness, though. Buck loved his friends like family, he just wished he remembered when this man became his. 

“Eddie,” Maddie protested. 

He gave her a stern look and she quieted.

Buck tried to catch Eddie’s eyes again, to try and garner some truth from them, but he stared stubbornly out of the way of Buck’s attempts.

“Alright, Buckaroo, they’ve wrangled up a fancy neurologist to take a look at that head of yours. Now, I told her that there were some things about you even the greatest of medicine can’t cure, but…” Chimney stopped as he entered the room and saw the state of the three of them. A tall woman with curly dark hair followed him through. 

“Still a bad time?” he muttered, not at all inconspicuously, to Maddie as he came around to her side of Buck’s bed.

“Hello Mr. Buckley, I’m Dr. Lehmann. A colleague of mine had already informed me of your case, but Mr. Han was kind enough to track me down while I was having lunch with my wife.” She gave Chimney a sidelong glare, but he only shrugged. 

Maddie slapped his shoulder. 

“I’d like to run a few more CT scans to be sure, but based your results from the past few days, it looks like we can rule out any latent hemorrhaging or bleeding as a cause of the memory loss that Mr. Han described. Now, in your own words Mr. Buckley, can you describe what you’re feeling?” The doctor clicked her pen and stared at him, waiting for his answer. 

In fact, they were all staring at him.

“I-I don’t know,” Buck stuttered. “I feel like my head is stuffed with cotton. I feel like I’m breaking in a new body.” He paused, exasperated, searching for the right words and failing. “I feel like I woke up and lost five years of my life.”

“Hm,” was all the doctor replied, nodding. Her pen scratched against the small pad in her hand. “Have you had any dizziness? Confusion?”

 _All_ Buck felt was confusion, but he just shook his head. The doctor hummed again. 

“A nurse will be in soon to take you down to radiology. I’ll be back to discuss any further treatment after I can review your films.” The doctor turned to leave, nodding towards Chimney on her way out. “Mr. Han,” she acknowledged. 

“She’s the one who took that rebar out of my head,” Chimney whispered to Buck conspiratorially as Dr. Lehmann left. He leaned across Maddie’s lap, pointing at his forehead. “You remember my accident, right?”

Buck laughed, more in relief than anything, glad to at least have one relationship that appears to have been stable over the years. 

“How could anyone forget that cake, Chim?”

Chimney _tsk_ -ed, shaking his head.

“What good is memory loss if I can’t even recount my war stories?”

“ _Howie_ ,” Maddie pressed, inclining her head to Eddie and shaking it. “Eddie was just telling Evan how long they’ve been friends.”

Chimney looked to Buck, then to Eddie, then to Buck again.  
“Of course,” he replied after a second of silence. “You guys put Hen and I to shame.”

A shuffle and flurry of movement in Buck’s periphery pulled his attention back to Eddie. He was reaching under his chair and pulled out a black jacket. He didn’t bother putting it on, opting instead for gripping it tight in his fist. 

“I, uh,...I need some air.”

He didn’t spare any of them a backwards glance as he left the room. On his way out the door, he nearly collided with a short nurse in blue scrubs. After a hastily mumbled apology, he was gone. 

Maddie and Chimney both said nothing as the nurse briefly checked Buck’s vitals before helping him down into a wheelchair. Maddie looked like she wanted to help, but Chimney held her elbow as she made any move. He held his hand there longer than Buck thought reasonable, and he made a mental note to ask Chimney about it later. 

“We’ll be here when you get back,” Maddie needlessly affirmed as Buck was wheeled out the room. He knew she wouldn’t leave. 

Outside the room, Buck immediately slouched in the chair. He’d done nothing and he was still exhausted. The nurse was chatting to him about current events; to her credit, she was really trying to engage Buck, but he zoned out halfway down the hall his own room was on. They were almost to the elevators when Buck heard the deep cadence of Eddie’s voice, pulling him out of his mindless stupor. Looking around the corner to his left, he could see Eddie deep into a conversation with Dr. Lehmann.

“But _when_ will his memory come back?” his words were raw, much angrier and harder than Buck had ever heard—though that wasn't saying much. 

He didn’t want to eavesdrop, but it was too tempting when the conversation was so obviously about him. Buck glanced up at his nurse and gave her a stopping motion with his hand, pointed down the hall, then put a finger over his lips. She followed his motion with her eyes and Buck could see when she realized exactly what he meant. She smiled and nodded. 

“Mr. Diaz, with your experience I’m sure you must understand how delicate head injuries can be. With the amount of time Mr. Buckley spent without oxygen—not to mention the traumatic blunt force to his skull—you should count yourself lucky that he is awake at all.”

Eddie stilled, the blood draining from his face. Buck could see every sleepless night Eddie must have had in the weary way he leaned against the hospital wall. Buck missed the warm glow of the careless smiles Eddie had when he first woke up; they were intense, sure, but the sight of them didn’t fill him with so much inexplicable guilt. 

“Are you saying…” Eddie hesitated, blinking slowly. He stared up at the ceiling like it held some impossible answer or salvation. 

“Are you saying Buck may never remember anything?” he finally finished. 

Dr. Lehmann sighed, not unkindly. Her face grew softer and she placed her hand on Eddie’s shoulder. 

“I’m saying that five years is a long time, and there is so much we don’t yet understand about the brain and memory. I’m saying we can’t know anything for sure.”

The nurse began pushing Buck forward again before he was ready to leave. He began to protest, wanting to hear more, but she put her hand up at him. For a minute, they moved without any sound other than the resilient squeak of the wheelchair.

“Some things aren’t good for recovery,” was all she said as the elevator doors closed behind them. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMJqv2GyE/
> 
> Thanks for all the kind messages on the last chapter! hope you enjoy this one! Sorry it took so long to post, but I was drowning in finals.  
> I have drafted and outlined the rest of this thing (which is about the only productive thing I do on the train to work) so if I do things right it should be about 9 or 10 chapters, depending on if I just combine chapters 3/4 to get to the good parts of this shit straight away lol


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